Abha Karki Rajbhandari, PhD

Dr. Abha Karki Rajbhandari is a principal investigator in the departments of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she studies the mechanisms underlying brain–body interactions in stress. She received her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and completed her postdoctoral training at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Outside the lab, Dr. Rajbhandari is a holistic health practitioner and teacher, deeply rooted in yoga and Advaita Vedanta. For her, yoga is not simply a practice confined to the mat, but a way of living that can be woven into every aspect of daily life.

Born in Nepal and later moving to the United States to pursue higher education, Dr. Rajbhandari’s spiritual journey began early and continues to evolve. She explores profound questions about human existence through the lenses of science, logic, reasoning, knowledge, and mysticism. Her work and teachings are united by a passion for bridging scientific and philosophical understandings of life.